April 22, 2013
GOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS UPDATE
The FY 2014 Education Trust Fund (ETF) Budget has passed the Alabama House of
Representatives. The Governor’s budget had proposed a 1.98% increase for state
universities. Unfortunately, the House Education Ways and Means Committee
reduced that to 1.42%. Reasons for the reduced increase given by budget
committee leaders were: slow economic recovery, the use of the rolling-reserve
program which takes the average revenue from the previous 15 years and sets a
parameter for the amount of overall budget increase allowed and the uncertain
cost of the “K-12 flexibility bill” recently passed by the legislature.
The budget will be debated in the Senate Finance and Taxation Committee this
week where Senators have added concerns such as repayment of the Rainy Day
Account and lower than anticipated revenue due to sequestration. University
representatives from across the state will be working hard to prevent further
cuts.
Last Wednesday, the Senate Education Policy Committee approved
Representative Jamie Ison’s HB123 which will protect Alabama universities’ ability
to charge competitive rates for online courses. The current out-of-state tuition
law inadvertently requires Alabama universities to charge twice the in-state rate
for out-of-state students participating in online courses. That requirement will be
enforced next year if the Ison bill fails to pass.
USA has many important online courses that will be negatively affected.
Fortunately, the bill is poised to appear before the Senate at anytime and then go
to the Governor for his signature. Hopefully that will happen soon before the
Senate gets bogged down in the last minute rush that occurs at the end of each
section. With only eight legislative days remaining in the session that rush is
approaching fast.